Three C’s of the KJV

I love the cadence, comfort, and certainty of the old King James Bible.

The words of the King James Bible have a certain rhythmic and melodic quality that we have lost in the “advance” of the English language. This is not just the biased view of King James-Onlyists. This is something known and admitted even by opponents of continued use of the King James Bible. Michael Spotts, Senior Minister of Phoenix United Reformed Church, in “Which Translation Should You Memorize” – where he criticized the King James and advocated memorizing the ESV – nevertheless admitted that “the King James is most memorable” (which he attributed to the “metered speech and punchy, one-syllable words”). Even a New York Times editor praised the King James Bible, writing that it “rings in the ear and lingers in the mind.” There is a beauty of cadence and quality of memorization that is lost in modern English Bibles. This quality also makes it a Bible much better to the listening ear than modern Bibles.

The words of the King James Bible deliver comfort of faithfulness and familiarity. Oh, the raw wounds administered to the grieving when someone reads a bastardized version of Psalm 23 at a funeral! Russell D. Moore, not a friend of the King James for general use, turns to it when in sorrow or trying to comfort someone. He writes, “There’s something about the beauty, the majesty, and the continuity between generations about the KJV that is sorely missed when it is gone. I suppose that’s why I preach and teach from any number of translations, but when I am sorrowful or grieving or comforting a hopeless friend I turn to the same King James Version I memorized verses from in childhood Sword Drills at Woolmarket Baptist Church. I know that I’m reading the same words my grandfather preached from fifty years ago, the same words my great-grandparents would have read through the Depression, and my great-great-great grandparents would have read in the aftermath of Reconstruction.”

The words of the King James Bible have a certainty, a dependable known correctness; it has long been tried and tested. After over 410 years you do not have to worry about these words of truth changing. You do not have to wonder if someone will turn up an error that has never been challenged and answered. In the modern world nothing is certain, nothing is settled. Your Critical Text Greek New Testament will fluctuate and fracture. Your modern English translation will be revisited and revised. The NIV Committee on Bible Translation meets annually to consider what changes to it may or may not be in order. Amidst the changing changes of moving modernity still stands the old King James Bible. It is weathered and beaten. Even many of its fair-weather friends hope for its death. But still it stands. “Of modernity we have more than enough; the Bible needs to be read against modernity’s grain. I’ll stick with the King James.” (Philologos, a prestigious Jewish-language columnist)

I love the cadence, comfort, and certainty of the old King James Bible.